In navigation systems in vehicles such as passenger cars or trucks, for example, map representations of an area surrounding the vehicle are displayed on a display system in the vehicle. The map representation includes roads in the vicinity of the vehicle, a symbolic representation of the vehicle as well as its position and orientation, and further “points of interest” (POI) which mark facilities or positions on the map that are of interest for the vehicle driver, such as hotels, gas stations, restaurants, toll stations and so forth. While the vehicle is traveling, the map representation is usually altered in such a way that the position of the host vehicle is always located at the same position in the display system, despite its changing geographical position, and the remaining objects in the map representation such as the roads and POIs change their position on the display system accordingly. This ensures an easy orientation of the driver with the aid of the map representation.
The objects such as POIs or roads, for example, shown on the map representation, may provide further information or functionalities that are able to be called up or actuated by a user of the system, if needed. Thus, for instance, a POI that represents a hotel may supply further information, e.g., with respect to room rates, room amenities and room availability, or may provide a functionality for setting up a telephone connection to the hotel or a functionality for programming the address of the hotel as a destination address of the navigation system.
For example, a user of the navigation system may interact with the map representation of the navigation system via a touch-sensitive screen, referred to as a touchscreen, of the navigation system. In order to call up additional information or functionalities of an object shown on the map representation, it is then only necessary to touch the object on the map representation with a finger, for instance. Since, as described above, the objects or POIs move on the map representation while the vehicle is traveling, the challenge placed on the eye-hand coordination of the operator to strike these moving targets is increased. Particularly if the system is operated by the driver of the vehicle, false hits thus occur increasingly, and the time glancing at the display system is increased, which means the vehicle driver is distracted from the events occurring in road traffic. Moreover, these movable objects may move out of the display area of the display system before the driver or the operator has been able to select the destination.
Similar problems exist not only when working with the map representations on a navigation system described above, but also in the case of a multitude of applications in the vehicle with what are referred to as animated displays that change as a function of a movement of the vehicle or as a function of information changing over time.